Second Self: Beethoven Resurrection

Categories
documentary feature film live music narrative

A film by Hugo Glendinning and Tilly Shiner

Original Score by Sami El-Enany

World premiere & live orchestral performance: KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen, Hannover September 24-25 2020.

A concert-film co-created by Tilly Shiner, Hugo Glendinning and Sami El-Enany.

London, Halloween 2019. Britain is on the verge of Brexit. Ludwig van Beethoven is in the city, or rather: his spirit. He is looking for justice. The Royal Philharmonic Society had commissioned the 9th Symphony from him, but fed him an insulting 50 dollars.

Accompanied by live music, the magically realistic concert-film tells the fictional story of Beethoven's journey to London. That night, the city is in a process of self-destruction. At sunset, Beethoven is pulled from the mud of the Thames. He staggers through the streets in madness, joining night owls, demonstrators and offenders. He drinks and smokes and is increasingly disgusted by his strenuous search for the Royal Philharmonic Society. They are musicians and artists who, despite his ragged appearance, give him hope that his legacy will live on: in Trafalgar Square, a grieving woman breathes the 'Ode to Joy', and on the banks of the Thames, the arrangement of a violin sonata sounds. Beethoven's nocturnal journey ends at dawn on the Thames, when the city awakens again. The music for the film seems to be a work by Beethoven, a ghost work composed and arranged by the British-Egyptian film composer Sami El-Enany, performed live by the Hanoverian musica assoluta.

A magical-realist documentary, a speculative ghost story, a concert, an improvised, slow-motion disaster movie.



A film by Hugo Glendinning and Tilly Shiner

Original Score by Sami El-Enany

World premiere & live orchestral performance: KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen, Hannover September 24-25 2020.

A concert-film co-created by Tilly Shiner, Hugo Glendinning and Sami El-Enany.

London, Halloween 2019. Britain is on the verge of Brexit. Ludwig van Beethoven is in the city, or rather: his spirit. He is looking for justice. The Royal Philharmonic Society had commissioned the 9th Symphony from him, but fed him an insulting 50 dollars.

Accompanied by live music, the magically realistic concert-film tells the fictional story of Beethoven's journey to London. That night, the city is in a process of self-destruction. At sunset, Beethoven is pulled from the mud of the Thames. He staggers through the streets in madness, joining night owls, demonstrators and offenders. He drinks and smokes and is increasingly disgusted by his strenuous search for the Royal Philharmonic Society. They are musicians and artists who, despite his ragged appearance, give him hope that his legacy will live on: in Trafalgar Square, a grieving woman breathes the 'Ode to Joy', and on the banks of the Thames, the arrangement of a violin sonata sounds. Beethoven's nocturnal journey ends at dawn on the Thames, when the city awakens again. The music for the film seems to be a work by Beethoven, a ghost work composed and arranged by the British-Egyptian film composer Sami El-Enany, performed live by the Hanoverian musica assoluta.

A magical-realist documentary, a speculative ghost story, a concert, an improvised, slow-motion disaster movie.